15. Are All Yogis Non-violent?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Matylda Ciołkosz [+]
Jagiellonian University, Kraków
Matylda Ciołkosz is scholar of religions and an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Religions, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In her research, she explores how religious concepts and doctrines are formed under the influence of different biological and sociocultural factors. As a longtime yoga practitioner, rock climber, and musician, she is especially interested in the significance of movement practices as one of these factors. In her studies- so far focused mainly on modern yoga- she applies the methodologies of cognitive science and lingustics.
Description
It is nowadays common to associate yoga practice with non-violence, but in some yogic texts, the virtue of non-violence is not always relevant and yogic warriors existed. Even today this image of yoga as peaceful sometimes belies forms of systemic violence, and even traditional asceticism can be argued to be a form of self-inflicted violence against the body.